Not satisfied with the disjuncture between the so-called ivory tower and the rest of the world, Lisa Helps spends much of her time as a community activist committed to place-based solutions to global and national challenges, and increasing citizen engagement. She was Councilor for the City of Victoria and Executive Director of the Community Micro Lending Society (www.communitymicrolending.ca) in Victoria, British Columbia, and was elected Mayor of the city of Victoria on 15 November 2014. She also sits on the Program Committee of Leadership Victoria, a local organization that runs a multi-sector community leadership program. She was Chair of the Board of Directors of Fernwood NRG, a neighbourhood organization, when the Society purchased and restored a run down building in the heart of the neighbourhood, built affordable housing units, and opened the Cornerstone Café as an enterprising non-profit venture. She has also served as chair of the Bread and Roses Collective, which produces the monthly Victoria Street Newz.

Experience as a Trudeau Scholar

To me the Trudeau Scholarship has been about much more than the money scholars are allocated. The generous scholarship and in particular the research and travel allowance has enabled me to do in depth on the ground research in two different cities in two nations. Yet it is the people, the access to such fine minds, to such committed and dedicated social, political, and artistic actors that have mattered more. My experience of being a Trudeau scholar is that I have felt intellectually stimulated and deeply engaged. How? Being a Trudeau scholar has provoked the realization that academic disciplines are an impoverished means of categorizing people and their work when that work is put in the service of communities beyond the academy. The Foundation – and the members of the Trudeau community – have created a space where the disciplines we come from as Scholars and Fellows are secondary to the reason that we’ve all been gathered together in the first place: to ensure that ideas generated and disseminated within academia reach a wider audience for their full potential – as propellants of meaningful action – to be realized

Lisa Helps, 2006 Trudeau scholar, was elected the new mayor of Victoria in British Columbia on Saturday night, defeating two-term incumbent Dean Fortin by less than 100 votes.
To read more: Lisa Helps Mayor of Victoria